In his collection of essays, Zen in the Art of Writing, one of Bradbury’s inspiring suggestions is as follows:
Make a long list of nouns (or titles), like THE LAKE or THE CAROUSEL. Pick one of these nouns and do a freewrite on it (mix prose and poetry, fiction and essay writing, just write). Then, at some point, maybe in the middle of the page, a character will appear. Something will click and come together. You’ll discover a story that you now need to tell.
Does this always work? I’m not sure, but it’s a fun exercise anyway. It may give you something, even if only one sentence (an observation, a joke) that you wind up using somewhere.
Bright Across the Lifespan 